Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The first person to successfully answer last week's trivia question was our good My Space Fan Page friend Brian, who has become the Kovacs trivia master. To see the question and the answer click the link. The answer is in the comments section so once you read the question scroll all the way down. I'd also like to congratulate our good My Space friend Barbara who sent in her answer after Brian but also got it correct.

The Ernie My Space is up to 413 friends this week, an increase of 5 from last week. We thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

And now for this week's trivia question. Have a look at the photo below:

1. What was the title of the episode that Ernie and Edie appeared in?

2. What was the plot of the episode?

3. Where is it that the Riccardo and Kovacs families live (city and state)?

4. What was the original air date of this episode?

5. Did Ernie's daughters appear on the program?

6. What is the significance of this episode in terms of the careers of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and in terms of the running order of episodes? What number episode is it in the series?

7. At one point in the episode Lucy stops by to visit Edie. Edie opens the refrigerator to show Lucy something. What is taking up the ENTIRE fridge?

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: Who was the program's sponsor?

This is a tough one folks but I know you can do it. I'll level with you; this is not an easy show to find. I've seen it at the Museum of TV and Radio and on TV Land; when they aired it I taped a VHS copy. The entire series was supposed to come out on DVD this year but has not yet and the VHS tapes of individual episodes are hard to come by. I know, however, that many of you have probably seen this episode. You can research most of these questions online and in Ernie biographies.

I didn't find any new blog posts or news clips this week, so until next week, "Its Been Real!!"

ED NOTE, 11/30/2010: The entire series has been available on DVD for a while now and you can get it from Amazon.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

OK. I just had to rush over the the library to write this post, fellow Kovacsians, because the power in my building went out once again. Then, I had to wait until this morning to post it because I had left the photo file at home and couldn't get back to the library. That's why the post is a day late. Please accept my apologies. Twelve hours with no power is no fun!

Take a look at the photo to answer this week's trivia question:

1. What is the name of Ernie's character?

2. What is his profession? (the full title)

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: Name a couple of his fictitious sponsors and if you're feeling truly adventurous some of the "tunes" that are on the records in the picture.

Once again thanks to all the folks have put in a friend request on the Ernie KovacsMySpace Fan Page. We've added eleven new friends since last week and are now up to 408.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Most Kovacsians are familiar with "Take A Good Look," a game show hosted by Ernie from October 22, 1959 to February 9, 1961, Thursday nights, 10:30 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. on ABC television. For those who are not, I've borrowed a description of the program from blog contributor Ben Model's website, "The Unofficial Official Ernie Kovacs Website:"

"Dutch Masters sponsored Ernie's version of the popular panel show, such as "What's My Line" and "To Tell the Truth," which he had been sending up for years on his own shows. The program was called "Take a Good Look" and aired from October 1959 through February 1961, when he began making his monthly specials. The concept was simple. Ernie's panelists had to guess his guest's occupation by asking the guest questions and watching 3 videotaped clues. The clues were basically Kovacs, Bobby Lauher and Jolene Brand doing blackout gags which had something -- something extremely remote -- to do with the guest's occupation. The clues were funny and surreal, but usually left the panel clueless. A couple of episodes were released on home video from 16mm kinnies (albeit surreptitiously) in the 1980s, and they pop up on eBay sporadically."

An Ernie fan showed me the bootleg video of "TAGL" to which Ben refers. Like Ben said it shows up sporadically on the websites of shady DVD sellers and on eBay. It contains several full episodes of "TAGL" with commercials. If you'd like to see the show your best bet is to visit the Museum Of TV And Radio in either New York City or Los Angeles where you can see full episodes. Your other option is to watch clips on "The Best Of Ernie Kovacs" 2 DVD set. Be advised that the clips only exist as extras on the 2 DVD set; the 5 VHS tape set DOESN'T have them. And speaking of the Museum Of TV And Radio I found out this morning that on June 5th they officially changed their name to "The Paley Center For Media" named for industry pioneer and former CBS chairman William S. Paley. For some reason there are two websites, one under the old name which can be accessed from the link above and one under the new name at http://www.paleycenter.org/.

There's another purpose to this week's post besides just educating you about "TAGL." A friend from "over the pond" in England contacted me with an interesting story. Here it is, in her own words:

This is my story- My name is Judy Stivers. I was born in Birmingham England and grew up there. In 1958 I met & married my husband (Bryant Stivers) who was in the air force @ the time. On a Pan Am flight to the United States I gave birth to twin girls. The plane was over the Atlantic 80 miles N.E. of Newfoundland at the time of their birth. Needless to say there was a lot of publicity about it. The Take A Good Look Staff contacted me by phone & I was on my way to CA to be on Ernie's show. Edie Adams, Cesar Romero and Rowan & Martin were the panelists. Ernie came out dressed in basketball attire and threw one basketball into the air and three came down. We were instructed to give one word answers to the panelist questions. They did not guess what had happened to me. I was given $300.00 for appearing on the show. In 1959 not everyone had a TV so we did not get to see the show which aired in Nov. 1959. If anyone has any information as to whether the show still exists I would appreciate any information you may have.

So there you have it folks. I told Judy that I don't know of a copy of that episode existing anyplace (its not on the bootleg DVD nor the "Best Of." I'm also not sure if the Museum Of TV And Radio has it); if anyone has info about this episode I hope you'll let me know, either by posting a comment here or by contacting me through my main site, http://www.erniekovacs.net/. You can also contact me through the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Fan Page which this week is up to 397 friends, an increase of 9 from last week's total of 388. Thanks as usual to everyone who added us or accepted a request from us.

And now, the Kovacsian blog posts and news clips from the past week in Kovacsland:

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Last week's trivia question was successfully answered by TWO MySpace Fan Page friends, "Sluggo" and Barbara. You can click the link above to see the original trivia post and accompanying photo. Here are the answers:

1. What is the name of Ernie's character? MATZOH HEPPLEWHITE

2. What is his profession? MAGICIAN

3. What word proceeds the name of his profession on screen and what does this word mean? (IE, if he were a plumber named Joe Smith, the title card might read "Joe Smith Master Plumber").ITINERANT, which basically means travelling from town to town or place to place, or covering a circuit of places. So, the full title on the screen was "MATZOH HEPPLEWHITE ITINERANT MAGICIAN."

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: The actor on the far right went on to fame as a soap opera star. What's his name, which soap opera, and what character did he play for many years and as recently as 2006? In the bit pictured above what was his function?

BILL HAYES who plays Doug Williams on the NBC soap Days Of Our Lives. Bill worked frequently on Ernie's shows and is interviewed in one of the documentaries about Ernie. His function in the bit was as an audience member, as pointed out by Barbara. He was actually up on stage to inspect the equipment, but Ernie's character kept pushing him off stage lest he find out any of the secrets to the poorly performed trick.

My thanks to both Barbara and "Sluggo" for a job well done. And my thanks, as always, to everyone who has added us as a friend or accepted a friend request from us for the MySpace Fan Page. We've added seven new friends this week and are now up to 388!

When I first started the fan page back in April I sent friend requests to people who had Ernie listed as an influence or favorite TV show/personality. One of the first folks to respond and accept a request was a gentleman by the name of Justin (aka "Goldbug") who was a lifelong Ernie fan. He was a very nice guy and always ready with a friendly note or reminiscence of Ernie; he grew up in the Philadelphia area and watched Ernie's shows in the 1950s.

I hadn't heard from Justin in a while and found out the other day that he passed away. Today's post is dedicated to him; if you have some time I hope you'll remember him along with me and read the piece that he wrote for us.

That's it for this week Kovacsians. As usual, here are a couple of interesting posts I found that mention Ernie:

Subscribe To The Ernie Kovacs Blog

CLICK THE PHOTO ABOVE TO ORDER THE ERNIE KOVACS COLLECTION VOLUME 2 AND SEE THE PHOTO BELOW TO ORDER VOLUME 1 OR THE ABC SPECIALS DISC!

CLICK THE PHOTO TO ORDER "ERNIE KOVACS: THE ABC SPECIALS!" YOU CAN SEE A LISTING OF THE FULL CONTENTS HERE; "ERNIE KOVACS: THE ABC SPECIALS" IS DISC 5 FROM "THE ERNIE KOVACS COLLECTION" 6 DVD SET. YOU CAN ALSO ORDER THE FULL SET FROM THAT PAGE.

CLICK THE PHOTO TO ORDER THIS LANDMARK, NEVER BEFORE HEARD RECORDING, WHICH WAS RELEASED ON JUNE 19, 2012!

On Tuesday, November 19, 2013, MVD Entertainment Group will release "Here's Edie: The Edie Adams Television Collection"! This is a 4 DVD, 12 hr set of the
entire run of Edie Adams variety show which aired on ABC from 1962-64. It is the first-ever release of her classic variety show after more than 50 years.
Bonus material includes Edie''s musical numbers from the Ernie Kovacs show, a 16-page booklet with rare photos, program notes and her iconic Muriel Cigar
commercials. Here's a link to a press release which also lists the contents of the DVDs. Keep your eye on the links page where a link, when available, will be posted so you can pre-order the set.

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Links To Ernie Kovacs Merchandise

On this blog and its parent site Ernie Kovacs Dot Net A Tribute To Television's Original Genius you will see links to the majority of Ernie's material which is available for purchase. This includes (but is not necessarily limited to): Books, DVDs, tapes, CDs and memorabilia on various auction sites. A great deal of time and effort has gone into searching for and compiling lists of all that is available from sites that are reputable. We don't, however, assume any responsibility if you are unhappy with a purchase you make from one of these sites.

The only items that were sold directly by this blog and its parent site are from The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs retrospect; we had the inventory and we shipped it but it has sold out (you can click the link to learn more about these items in case you'd like to purchase them from other sources). We also offer "The Ernie Kovacs Collection" DVD set through our sites but we are not the shipper; the set is shipped to you directly from Shout Factory Video. You can buy this wonderful set with confidence and we fully endorse it.

Contributors

About This Blog

This blog is written by Kovacs fans Al Quagliata and Ben Model. Al started writing for Ben's EK website in the mid 90s and then started his own. This is the middle ground where these two Kovacsians meet to bring you all the latest goodies from Kovacsland!

Video And Audio Clips On This Site

My name is Al Quagliata; I’m the editor of this blog and run the website Ernie Kovacs Dot Net A Tribute To Televsion's Original Genius. Even though Ernie Kovacs was the original video comedian and was so visual, there are very few clips on this blog and on my website. In most cases I can’t verify that the parties who post these clips (e.g. on sites such as YouTube and Facebook) have the right to do so and it’s not up to me to decide if they do, so as a general rule I don’t post clips. My feeling is that this material should be legally purchased so that the royalties go to the parties who own the rights. And, just because you purchase something, that doesn’t give you the right to post it online. In some cases the rights holders allow this streaming content on sites they run; that’s their call and has nothing to do with me, nor am I going to presume that I can do it without permission.

This goes for audio too: recordings of novelty songs, music from the Kovacs shows and various EK sketches, some of which are available on CD or LP. I understand that sometimes these items are hard to find but I am not going to provide links to free downloads.

With all this in mind please do not contact me asking for copies of videos, DVDs, CDs, LPs, or to ask me to stream video. I will not post ANY links to file sharing sites which are sent to me nor will I respond to any emails regarding same.

I can offer the following: The Museum Of Broadcast Communications in Chicago has their archives listed online so you can view the list. Some of these listings have a digital file accompanying them for viewing and ⁄ or listening. Sign up is free and there are some very interesting EK files available to watch and listen to online. My assumption is that a broadcast museum is not just putting up clips without permission which is why I’m willing to list the link.

While they don't have online viewing, you can visit the Paley Center For Media in New York or Los Angeles to view shows in their massive collection. The link will take you to a listing of everything they have regarding Ernie Kovacs so that you can plan your visit; you're limited as to how much time you can spend in the museum library and how many shows you can view on your visit so you wouldn't want to spend all of it searching the database. Write down the catalog numbers and titles of the programs you wish to see, which will make finding them easy once you arrive. Contact the museum for more details.

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